County Republicans Disappointed By Jerry Sena U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx speaks with a supporter in Winston-Salem following news she had retained her 5th District seat despite losing in Watauga County. AP Photo via the Watauga Democrat. Watauga County Republicans spent part of Tuesday night searching for any hint of a silver lining in an otherwise bad election day for their party. The rest of the time they spent congratulating Democratic opponents, who rode a national wave of apparent antipathy toward the Republican leadership to victory in polling booths county wide. David Blust held to a thin ray of hope a little more than an hour after elections officials released the first unofficial Watauga County results showing that Democrats had swept every meaningful race at the county level while gaining ground in the statehouse as well. The picture had to be grim from the G.O.P. perspective, but Blust took it upon himself to seek out the election’s hidden blessings, despite going to bed trailing in his own bid to take the District 45 N.C. Senate seat. Blust had already toppled longtime incumbent John Garwood in a spring Republican primary upset win. But with 100 percent of the vote in by 9 p.m, and a 302 vote deficit to manage by 5 p.m. Wednesday, Blust had to be aware of the long odds he’d face in any quest to salvage a last minute reversal of fortune. Though he never conceded, Blust did congratulate democratic rival Steve Goss and wish him well should he end up as Watauga’s next senator in Raleigh. At the same time Blust remained upbeat and hopeful that the reported 310 outstanding provisional ballots set to be counted over the next few days, might somehow turn the election his way. As Republicans fell repeatedly in Tuesday’s polling, Blust was critical of his party’s own campaign machinery, which he blamed for low voter turnout across the county. At the same time he offered a pat on the back to Democrats whom he credited with coming up with a superior plan for signing up more voters and getting them to the polls in numbers larger than Republicans were able to manage. “I just think they outworked us,” Blust said. “Look at the numbers; they got theirs out to vote, a lot more than we did. They did a great job.” For whatever reason, Republicans failed to vote in numbers that might have put their superior numbers in the county’s registration roles to good use. Rep. Virginia Foxx was one of just the few local Republicans to win a race outright. District 10 congressional incumbent Patrick McHenry had an easy time of it as well outpacing challenger Richard Carsner by 65-35 percent, while Foxx’s took an easy 57-43 District 5 victory over Democratic challenger Roger Sharpe Republican District Attorney Jerry Wilson and county clerk of courts Glenn Hodges, a Democrat, had no trouble retaining their positions since neither faced opposition. Wilson’s was one of 28 of 39 District Attorney contests statewide that offered no contest at all. Foxx’s counterpart, Sharpe, gave a game effort in the early going, when the first few returns showed him close on the incumbent congresswoman’s heels. But the gap widened as the night wore on and Foxx eventually enjoyed a comfortable win. She suffered a rare rejection back home in Watauga County, though, where voters favored her opponent by more than a thousand votes. “Best I can remember,” Watauga County Republican Party chair Denny Norris said, “this is the first time Virginia hasn’t carried this county as long as she’s been politics. Even when she ran for the school board, she carried everything. She was probably the top vote getter of everybody.” For his part, Blust also trailed Goss among Watauga and Ashe county voters. Blust and Norris each cited rainy weather as at least a partial explanation for the disappointing Republican turnout. “A lot of our voters are elderly,” Norris said. “It’s hard for them to get out to the polls when the weather’s like this.” A steady rain had fallen all day Tuesday, and with the rain had come the flood of Democratic Party victories. But it was hard to determine what role, if any, the wet weather may have played in sweeping the Democrats into nearly every open seat, and earning them a considerable hold on the balance of power in posts all over the political map, from the county commissioners chambers to the sheriff’s office. District 2 commissioner William “Billy Ralph” Winkler easily secured his second term with a 57 to 43 percent win over Republican challenger James Coffey. But Winkler’s no-sweat victory didn’t even represent the widest margin of the night. Relative newcomers Mary Moretz and John Cooper did almost as well, and better, respectively, in a democratic sweep of the county commission’s three available seats. And when Tuesday’s winners eventually take office in December, they’ll join fellow Democrats Jim Deal and Roger Wilcox on a newly unanimous Democrat dominated Watauga County commission. But the most serious party shift may have come in the high-noon showdown between incumbent sheriff Mark Shook and Democratic challenger Len Hagaman. Hagaman surprised just about everyone by beating Shook with a less than cozy 98 vote margin. Shook had pounded his Republican primary challenger Joe Moody with 81 percent approval last May, and not many observers were betting against the politically savvy sheriff and his chances of winning a second four-year term. In early spring, Shook’s incumbency had been shaken, though, by two sexual harassment lawsuits, each filed by female employees a year and a half before the election. Blust and Norris refrained from blaming the policies of President George W. Bush for dooming candidates on such a local level. They were committed to blaming the poor Republican turnout and an energized Democratic corps with the systematic losses they’d suffered across the board. Norris did not seem particularly anxious to sit down and dissect the day’s failures. “We’ll look at it and try to see what went wrong,” he said. “We’ll continue having meetings every month and do our routine business. Norris seemed ready to step down from the party’s leadership and admitted that the sometimes ruthless tone of many of the campaigns had left him discouraged. A late mailer from democratic supporters appeared to strike Norris in the solar plexis and leave him wondering if he could harden his heart enough for safe political use. He held up the mailer he said had begun finding its way around the ASU campus on Tuesday. The 5x7 black and white card displayed prominently a thorny Blust comment questioning the wisdom of allowing college students to vote in the local elections. “The G.O.P. doesn’t want students to vote,” read a large headline on one side of the card. Norris said he took issue with the card’s implication that Blust’s comments came from the entire Republican Party. The distortion of the comment’s context was tantamount to a lie, Norris argued. And early analysis of election returns suggested that students voted heavily for Democrats in precincts traditionally populated by students. “I’ll probably just tell (party members) that they need to find somebody who’ll play a different game than what I played,” Norris said. “I can’t do that. I’m not cut out to do that kind of thing,” Norris said. Blust smiled and challenged Republicans to “follow this terrific defeat with a glorious victory.” “I hope we’ve learned,” Blust said. “I think we got the message. You have got to get them out and voting. You’ve just got to get them out.”